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etienne02 's review for:
While You Slept
by R.J. Parker
Another big deception in the thriller department. Let me start this review with a little editorial. The domestic thriller sub-genre have just explode in the recent years and not just in the self-publish, but in the «professional» publishing world as well. I’m no expert and I didn’t write my masters on it, but it seem to me that we had Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and then The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins and then they start popping everywhere. And I love those thrillers, and I love the movie adaptation that were made, but after that the sub-genre evolve and we mostly get some sub-sub-genre.
That bring the question of How precise does a genre or sub-genre must be? Because the more precise you get, the less book fit in, so the more sub-genre you get and the more precise are the expectations from the readers and that where it start falling apart.
So we find our self with book like that, that don’t deserve being call thriller, maybe domestic thriller, but even then I would call them Housewives domestic thriller, which is obviously to specific. Categorization is something complexes, a marketing tool rarely well use, in whatever department: books, movies, video games, (don’t get me start on) music, etc. So I’m not blaming anyone but this is an issue.
Back to this book. It was bad. Poorly written even for the genre standard. The character were generic and disappointing, but most of all it was all the wasted time and previsibility of the intrigue that was the problem. For me. Because this book remind me, I keep thinking about that while reading, about those TV afternoon weekdays movies on any general cable channel. They are easy, light, always more or less the same, you see the ending coming from a mile away and yet they keep coming years after years and they entertain a good portion of the population. Even my wife like to watch one of those a couple of times a year.
That’s why I will wrap this review saying that I didn’t like it at all, but I think some might enjoy it, the same way some like those movies and that’s good for them, but for me, as a reader, I like something a bit more challenging, darker and more original.
If you pick it up I hope you will like it, but unfortunately I can’t recommend reading this book!
That bring the question of How precise does a genre or sub-genre must be? Because the more precise you get, the less book fit in, so the more sub-genre you get and the more precise are the expectations from the readers and that where it start falling apart.
So we find our self with book like that, that don’t deserve being call thriller, maybe domestic thriller, but even then I would call them Housewives domestic thriller, which is obviously to specific. Categorization is something complexes, a marketing tool rarely well use, in whatever department: books, movies, video games, (don’t get me start on) music, etc. So I’m not blaming anyone but this is an issue.
Back to this book. It was bad. Poorly written even for the genre standard. The character were generic and disappointing, but most of all it was all the wasted time and previsibility of the intrigue that was the problem. For me. Because this book remind me, I keep thinking about that while reading, about those TV afternoon weekdays movies on any general cable channel. They are easy, light, always more or less the same, you see the ending coming from a mile away and yet they keep coming years after years and they entertain a good portion of the population. Even my wife like to watch one of those a couple of times a year.
That’s why I will wrap this review saying that I didn’t like it at all, but I think some might enjoy it, the same way some like those movies and that’s good for them, but for me, as a reader, I like something a bit more challenging, darker and more original.
If you pick it up I hope you will like it, but unfortunately I can’t recommend reading this book!